Tac Squad WIP #1

Work in progress shots from tactical squad #1 – although I missed photos of a couple of the interim steps before getting to the (mostly) finished armour. Actually, either way - I need to get my DSLR organised rather than just the sneaky camera-phone pics. 

Process for this build up - 

With gloss varnish on, all the crevices get a careful application of agrax earthshade. Then the groin/back of knees/chest eagles get a couple of thin coats of dawnstone (light grey); pipes and parts of backpack get leadbelcher - both followed by 1-2 shades of nuln oil to effectively turn it into a black-with-highlight finish. Skulls or areas that I want to keep more towards the grey end only get a light coat of nuln oil.

Bigger armour areas then get a thinned layer of mephiston red (mixed maybe 3/4 lahmian medium to 1/4 meph red) in a wide highlight, followed by a smaller line of evil sunz scarlet. Final edge highlight with panzer aces new wood using side of the brush. I quite like new wood colour on this, but it is quite soft compared to the GW wild rider or kindleflame highlights.

For some reason I've always done brush painting in batches of 5... airbrushing 20x marines definitely made sense, but by the time I've done 5 sets of highlight to all armour I feel like changing colour and doing the next stage. 

I quite like some of the unique detail that made it's way onto the current generation of marine kits - the chest on this one has the raised chin guard intended for the sergeant from the regular (Ultramarine) tac squad. In this case it will become an extra bit of armour for my flamer specialist. Figure he needs a bit of extra protection :-)